Of all their recommendations of what to do in Bali, Harvey and Mary insisted that we had to get the kids a Balinese dance lesson. It took some doing, but turns out the local Ubud kids have a dance lesson every Sunday morning at their village temple. Griffin refused to dance. He’d be the only boy, he said. It’d be too girly. He just plain didn’t want to dance.
Alice, on the other hand, was completely willing. Our guide, Agung, knew the dance teacher and asked if it was okay if the kids join in the village dance class, even without wearing sarongs. If you read our earlier cremation blog post, you’d know that we were completely clueless over when sarongs were truly required for proper religious respect, especially at a shrine. The Balinese dance teacher, well-known for his specialty in the aggressive male warrior dance, kindly said no sarong required and took our kids under his wing, often speaking in English, rather than the typical Balinese instruction, just so our kids would understand.
Alice, a bit nervous, joined with the girls for their dance lesson. All the girls in her class were either younger than her or the same age but shorter. Each time the female dance teacher would give a command, she’d physically demonstrate it, holding her arms and legs up high in an awkward, often twisted, position, moving her head and eyes from side to side, sing a little Balinese dance tune, then ask the girls to do it. Each time she told the girls to try it out, she’d carefully readjust Alice’s position. She made adjustments that we just couldn’t understand. It was like watching an American football player trying to learn ballet. The cracks in Alice composure started to show.
The boys walked in. Lots of boys in sarongs. I watched Griffin take them all in, noticing how athletic and cool they looked. After he had previously refused to dance (which led Boom to promptly refuse to dance), he was now willing. And, Boom said “Me too!” The instructor taught them little steps with the ultimate goal of acting out a fierce warror dance, with eyes shifting to the right as their bodies went to the left. Griffin tried so hard. Boom tried too, watching the teacher, and especially Griffin, carefully -- largely raising his shoulders and stomping in the same general direction as Griffin. Griffin and Boom looked more like Tentative Warriors than Fierce Warriors.
Then, they watched a senior boy get taught by the instructor. The senior boy is going to a Bali-wide competition, and he is Ubud’s entrant into the competition. Kenny and I got so caught up in watching Griffin and (laughing at) Boom that we’d forgotten about Alice, in her class in the adjacent courtyard. When we peeked in on her, she was sobbing by the side of the class, being comforted by a Balinese mom. Alice had freaked out when we’d left to watch the boys, not being able to find us. She sat out the rest of the class. Alice said she was “terrible” at Balinese dance.
In the end, Griffin had to be nearly dragged from the boy dance class, with the instructor pointing at Griffin saying, “That one has real talent.”
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